Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Regina Murphy Keith, Senior Lecturer in Food, Nutrition and Public Health, University of Westminster

The UK government recently unveiled its child poverty strategy, with the removal of the two-child limit on benefits payments as the centrepiece.

What’s sobering is how desperately the UK needs a strategy to address child poverty. At the end of 2024, four and a half million children – 31% of all UK children – were in relative poverty, meaning that they live in households earning less than 60% of the UK’s median income.

And 18% of all children were growing up in food-insecure households, without consistent access to nutritious food.

Ladywell, in Birmingham, has the highest levels, with 62% of children living in relative poverty. In some areas of Leeds, London, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool over half of children live in poverty. Nearly half of Asian British and Black British children are in poverty, as are 43% of children in single-parent families.

This problem isn’t limited to the UK. Research by Unicef found that 23% of the children in 37 surveyed high-income countries live in poverty. But while relative poverty in these countries declined by an average of 2.5% between 2013 and 2023, in the UK it rose by 34%.

Within the UK, Scotland reduced child poverty in 2025, thanks to policies such as the monthly Scottish child payment of £27.15 for all children under 16. Payments also go to those expecting a baby and during the baby’s first year of life, to support the health and nutrition of mothers and infants.

One in five Scottish children still live in poverty, but Scotland has kept child poverty levels stable in the last decade.

In England, policies such as the two child limit and the cap on total benefits payments, combined with reductions in spending, have led to rising levels of child poverty. Unicef estimate that as these there has been a real terms decrease in spending of around £3.6 billion on policies that support children.

Another challenge families have is the high cost of childcare. This reduces the number of women who return to work after having children, limiting family income. While an increase in government-funded hours of childcare has reduced costs in England for children aged under two, for those parents of three- and four-year-olds who already received a subsidy costs have gone up, as they in Wales and Scotland.

Testimonies from children collected by the Children’s Commissioner for England lay the problem of child poverty bare. A 14-year-old girl explained how she worried her family wouldn’t have enough to eat. “We do try as much as possible to save up what we have,” she said.

“Every time I got [food packages] the food was always out of date and mouldy,” said an 11-year-old boy. “I know I’m poor but I’m not going to eat mouldy food.”

What works

The government’s recent budget included the significant step of lifting the two-child cap on benefits, which limited the means-tested support that families could receive from the state to the first two children in a household. The removal of this limit will lift around 500,000 children out of poverty.

The government has also pledged to reduce the time families live in temporary housing such as bed and breakfasts. From 2026, free school meals will be available to all children in families on universal credit. This is progress – but children will still slip through the cracks.

It’s estimated that a third of the children in the deepest poverty are from migrant families, who have no access to state benefits.

Read more:
To truly tackle child poverty, the UK needs to look again at migration policy

One strategy that we can see is working is the provision of free school meals for all children in London. Three in five (60%) parents surveyed said they were able to spend more money on food as a result of free school meals, while 84% said that the provision of school lunches had helped their household finances.

Further action on child poverty requires investment in community support services, such as community kitchens and community support centres, which address the root causes poverty. Communities and children should be at the centre of future policies and plans.

Dr. Regina Murphy Keith is affiliated with the World Public Health Nutrition Association a registered charity for nutritionists and she is a Commissioner on the UK RIght to Food Commisssion

– ref. Child poverty: how bad is it in the UK? – https://theconversation.com/child-poverty-how-bad-is-it-in-the-uk-271692

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Juliet Wakefield, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology, Nottingham Trent University

Christmas is usually seen as a time of light, warmth, and happiness. However, in Europe there is a long tradition of people embracing the darker side by telling ghost stories during the festive season.

One of the most famous Christmas stories of all, A Christmas Carol, is essentially a ghost story. Indeed, Mark Gatiss’s well-received staging of the play is currently running under the name A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story at London’s Alexandra Palace Theatre. But what is the psychology behind people who enjoy hearing, reading and watching ghost stories at Christmas?

One important reason comes from Christmas’s winter setting (in the northern hemisphere at least). The short days and long nights of winter provide us with the opportunity for reflection on dark topics such as the supernatural.

The stark contrast between our warm homes and the coldness outside can create the sense of a liminal space (from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold) between light and dark, and between the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one. This can encourage reflection on liminal beings that cannot easily be defined or understood, such as ghosts and spirits.

The religious themes of Christmas also encourage many people to lean into the supernatural. Although for Christians the Christmas story is about the joy surrounding Jesus’s birth, the spectre of his death and resurrection are never far away.

Many Christmas carols mention Jesus’s eventual death, such as We Three Kings, which describes the Wise Men giving the baby Jesus the gift of myrrh, a herb used to prepare bodies for burial:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

breathes a life of gathering gloom,

sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,

sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Ghost stories, which often encompass themes such as judgement and retribution, have also often been intertwined with religious perspectives of morality. It has been argued that the rise in the popularity of ghost stories during the Victorian era was in part due to their attempt to inject Christian values into modern secular society, with Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol a prime example.

Psychology of spookiness

The psychological value of the ghost story’s communal experience should not be underestimated. The seminal ghost story writer M.R. James began telling his stories to students and friends at Christmas Eve parties at the University of Cambridge. Gatherings like this create an ideal setting for sharing stories. The thrill and suspense of collectively engaging with a spooky tale can not only entertain, it can create a sense of bondedness and shared identity, which, as I have shown in my research can benefit people’s wellbeing.

Research has also shown that collective continuity – the ability to maintain values and ideas over time by passing them on to the next generation – enhances wellbeing. Telling ghost stories, like all Christmas traditions, is a clear example of collective continuity.

One way this can enhance wellbeing is by helping people to cope with the prospect of their own death. Terror management theory argues that people manage the fear of their own death by investing in social groups. This essentially allows them to transcend death by being part of a collective that is more enduring than themselves: even after they have gone, the group will remain.

Ensuring that social groups have strong values and traditions (such as storytelling) allows this sense of transcendence to be maintained. The telling of ghost stories offers an additional layer to this continuity. Like horror in general, these stories allow us to explore our fears and reflections on mortality in a safe and supportive environment with like-minded people.

Many ghost stories also encapsulate themes of continuity, such as spirits from the past engaging with people living in the present. The ancient winter festival of Yule (which long predates Christmas) is strongly linked to ideas of continuity and involves ceremonies designed to honour one’s ancestors.

So where should you begin if you want to get into Christmas ghost stories this year? You may wish to start with some modern examples. Master of the ghost story Mark Gatiss has been writing Christmas ghost stories for the BBC for the past few years. His next instalment A Room in the Tower, based on E.F. Benson’s short story, will be on BBC2 at 10pm on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, Benson’s love of ghost stories developed from his attendance of M.R. James’s storytelling events at Cambridge.

Gatiss’s League of Gentlemen co-writers Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have also created an excellent Christmas ghost story in The Bones of St. Nicholas. Part of their anthology series Inside No. 9, it is available on BBC iPlayer. You can also buy DVDs of the classic BBC Christmas ghost stories, including Dickens’s The Signalman and M.R. James’s Whistle and I’ll Come To You.

There are also excellent anthologies of written Christmas ghost stories, such as Chill Tidings. Wishing you all the best for the spooky Christmas season!

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org; if you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

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Juliet Wakefield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why do so many love a good ghost story at Christmas? A psychologist explains – https://theconversation.com/why-do-so-many-love-a-good-ghost-story-at-christmas-a-psychologist-explains-271782

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sascha Stollhans, Professor of Language Education and Linguistics, University of Leeds

The government has announced that the UK will be re-joining the Erasmus+ programme. Young people will be able to participate in the scheme again from January 2027.

Erasmus+ is a European Union programme that offers opportunities for students, teachers, and young people to study, train, volunteer or gain work experience abroad. The scheme aims to improve skills, promote cultural exchange, foster inclusion and strengthen cooperation between educational institutions and organisations.

When the UK left the European Union in 2020, it also decided to withdraw from Erasmus+. The Turing scheme, the government’s replacement, has faced a lot of criticism due to its limited scope and difficult processes.

The news about the UK re-joining Erasmus+ will feel like an early Christmas present to many who have been campaigning for this over the past few years. Indeed, international mobility programmes offer a range of benefits to young people (and not so young people). They can play a major part in an educational journey.

Here are six benefits that the UK will be regaining when it becomes a member of Erasmus+ again.

1. Being part of a long established network

The Erasmus programme was founded in 1987. Thanks to its 38-year-old history, the scheme benefits from tried-and-tested processes and a wide-ranging infrastructure. Having funded and supported over 16 million people over the years, Erasmus+ is built on a wealth of experience and firmly established international partnerships. It’s an accessible and well-supported programme.

2. Generous support for people from all walks of life

Participants in the Erasmus+ scheme are exempt from oversees tuition and examination fees. They also receive scholarships to subsidise their travel and living costs, which makes the experience more affordable.

We often associate Erasmus+ with students spending a term or more at an overseas university. But its focus is actually much broader. It includes opportunities to study, work, train, volunteer and even develop careers in sports coaching abroad.

3. Cultural and personal growth

For students, trainees and educators alike, international mobility programmes provide opportunities to experience other cultural contexts and gain different perspectives. They enable young people to develop their adaptability and cultural awareness, and, not least, their language skills.

They are also an a opportunity to make lifelong international friends, and potentially even more. A survey of over 55,000 students found that a quarter of those that had taken part in Erasmus+ met their life partner during their time abroad.

4. Reciprocal benefits

A major advantage of the Erasmus+ scheme is that it is a reciprocal programme. Member countries both send and receive participants. UK educational institutions and the wider community gain a lot by welcoming exchange students from other countries.

For higher education, for example, having students from different parts of the world on campus gives local students the chance to learn about other cultures right on their doorstep. Everyday interactions in classrooms, group work and social activities help build understanding, curiosity and respect for different ways of thinking and living.

International exchange students also contribute fresh ideas, skills and life experiences shaped by their home countries and education systems. Beyond campuses, local communities and economies benefit from increased cultural diversity and global connections.

5. Improved academic outcomes and employability

Taking part in international mobility programmes is not just beneficial for personal growth, but might also improve academic outcomes and chances on the job market.

Some research studies suggest that undergraduate students who have participated in Erasmus+ achieve better results on average. In any case, employers value international experiences and the agility and open-mindedness that participants in international mobility programmes have often developed.

6. Closer relationships with international partners

There are a lot of educational benefits of rejoining Erasmus+, but there may also be wider political and economic ones.

While having more graduates with intercultural experiences will be beneficial in itself, today’s news may also be a significant step towards a renewed relationship with the EU. And building bridges is never a bad thing.

Sascha Stollhans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. UK to re-join Erasmus+ – here are six benefits of the European exchange scheme – https://theconversation.com/uk-to-re-join-erasmus-here-are-six-benefits-of-the-european-exchange-scheme-272278

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Manning, Associate Professor in Psychology, University of Birmingham

It is the time of year when decorations appear everywhere and everyone has a preferred style, from bright flashing lights to something more understated. Christmas decorations are meant to be cheerful, yet for some people, certain types of visual input can be surprisingly difficult to tolerate.

No one wants to dampen the festive mood, but it is worth knowing that decorations can cause discomfort in ways that are easy to overlook.

Flashing lights are a familiar Christmas choice, probably because they grab attention. We have known for a long time that flashing lights can trigger seizures in people with epilepsy because rapid flashes can synchronise activity in parts of the brain that are already more susceptible to overstimulation.

Autistic people can also be sensitive to flashing lights because many autistic people have heightened sensory responsiveness. People with migraines may be affected because bright, flickering contrast can stimulate the visual cortex and lead to headaches.

Even without these conditions, flashing lights can feel unpleasant. Faster flashes are usually worse. Anything above three flashes per second tends to more easily overload the visual cortex.

Since many modern lights have adjustable settings, slowing the flash rate or turning the flash off entirely can make the display more comfortable for people who are sensitive to this type of stimulation.

Invisible flicker

Lights can also be uncomfortable even when they appear steady. Some produce a rapid flicker that is too fast for you to see. A quick way to check is to record the lights on your phone using the video “slo mo” setting. Invisible flicker can affect reading ability,
cause headaches and increase visual fatigue.

People with sensory sensitivities, which can include heightened sensitivity to noise, touch, light, colour contrast or movement, are especially likely to be affected by flicker. Researchers are still exploring how flicker affects different groups, and the precise mechanism is not fully understood. But we know that certain lights bother some people far more than others.

Keep cool or stay warm?

When buying white Christmas lights, you will usually see two options. Cool white resembles bright daylight and warm white looks more like sunrise or sunset.

In general, cooler light can help with concentration because it mimics the colour temperature of daylight, which signals alertness to the brain. Warmer light tends to feel more relaxing as it resembles evening light when you are winding down. The choice depends on the atmosphere you want to create.

Warmer light can be particularly welcome when it is cold outside because it can make people feel physically warmer. People with sensory sensitivities, including many autistic people, may prefer warm white because cool white can feel harsher on the eyes, which makes it more uncomfortable to look at for long periods.

Festive colour schemes often rely on red and green. Red, however, is widely reported to be the most uncomfortable colour. One reason is because the photoreceptors responding to red light lead to more brain activity in the gamma range, which is a fast brain rhythm.

Discomfort is greater when red is a deep red or when it flickers. It can also feel more intrusive when displayed next to strong contrasting colours such as green or blue . Choosing reds and greens that are closer in tone to each other and avoiding alternating red and green lights can help reduce the strain.

Brightness also matters. Brighter lights are generally more uncomfortable for most people, and this is particularly true for people with sensory processing differences. Strong light feels more intense and can trigger quicker fatigue or discomfort.

For many people, visual discomfort caused by lights is mild and passes quickly. For others, it can lead to tiredness, nausea, headaches and feeling overwhelmed. People vary widely in how sensitive they are. Knowing that not everyone experiences decorations in the same way is a simple step to support friends and family. Something as small as changing a light setting or switching off certain decorations when someone visits can genuinely help.

Christmas decorations bring joy and brighten the darkest months of the year. With a little thought about how different lights and colours affect people, we can keep the festive sparkle while making the season more comfortable for everyone.

Catherine Manning currently receives funding from the Medical Research Council and The Leverhulme Trust, and has previously received funding from the Wellcome Trust.

Arnold J Wilkins has previously received funding from the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

– ref. Bright, flickering and flashing lights really can be bad for you – here’s how to have a visually comfortable Christmas – https://theconversation.com/bright-flickering-and-flashing-lights-really-can-be-bad-for-you-heres-how-to-have-a-visually-comfortable-christmas-271502

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Yerzhan Tokbolat, Lecturer in Finance, Queen’s University Belfast

Russia’s wartime economy is getting weaker as the war in Ukraine approaches its fourth anniversary, according to a recent report by PeaceRep, a research group led by the University of Edinburgh. The report, Against the Clock? Why Russia’s War Economy is Running Out of Time, finds that Russia is being forced to spend aggressively on the war, while its earning abilities have dropped significantly.

The funding source used to finance much of this spending, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, also looks to be dwindling. According to the report, around 76% of the fund’s US$148 billion (£110 billion) pre-war liquid reserves was spent within the first three years of the war.

In an article in May, I argued that Russian leader Vladimir Putin could afford a drawn-out war because he had spent more than 20 years preparing for it. Under Putin’s leadership Russia has consistently posted budget surpluses, amassed foreign currency reserves and reduced its reliance on western debt.

The question now is how far can that preparation carry the Russian economy? For the moment, it appears Russia can still sustain the war. But it can do so only by drawing heavily on earlier buffers, such as foreign reserves and the sovereign wealth fund, while diverting an ever-growing share of national resources towards the military.

The strain on Russia’s economy is being compounded by mounting external pressures. The EU, which is currently the largest buyer of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline gas, announced in early December that it would end its imports of Russian LNG in 2026. Imports of pipeline gas will end the following year.

But Russia’s revenue streams have remained relatively resilient throughout the war. Russia has diversified its exports of crude oil, with China now accounting for around 47%, India about 38% and Turkey roughly 6%. These revenue flows, together with earlier economic preparation, have helped sustain the three core areas that shape any wartime economy: industrial output, fiscal capacity and social resilience.

According to 2024 analysis by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, war-related output in Russia surged by about 60% in the early years of the conflict. That expansion still underpins Russia’s industrial base today. War-related industries have accounted for almost all of manufacturing growth since the invasion.

Energy revenues also continue to bolster the federal budget, though the government is relying increasingly on domestic borrowing and reserve drawdowns to fund deficits. And on the household side, higher wages in military-linked sectors and targeted government payments to the families of mobilised soldiers have helped soften the impact of inflation. Income from mobilisation has even lifted household savings, particularly in poorer regions of Russia.

Yet this appearance of stability reflects an economy being stretched rather than strengthened. Defence-related activity now dominates manufacturing, drawing labour and capital away from civilian sectors. Civilian industries are losing workers, machinery and investment, which is deepening structural stagnation and will make future economic recovery more difficult. What looks like resilience is, in practice, a system operating under growing strain.

Russia’s unsustainable economy

The central question now is how long can Russia’s remaining buffers support its militarised economy? Labour shortages have become structural rather than temporary, and inflationary pressures have persisted even amid weakening growth. Demographic pressures add to this squeeze, with mobilisation, emigration and long-term population decline shrinking the workforce available to both industry and the military.

Technological limits are tightening too. Export controls have cut Russia off from many advanced components, increasing reliance on parallel imports and domestic substitutes that are often more expensive or less reliable. This is slowing production and constraining the sophistication of new military systems.

A notable shift is also emerging in how the war is financed. With industry and labour close to capacity, and the EU phasing out Russian gas, the government can no longer rely on economic expansion or strong energy revenues to support the budget.

The new three-year budget, submitted to parliament in late September, raises VAT and expands the tax burden on small businesses. This will pass more of the cost of the war on to households and firms, a model that will only remain viable while the public tolerates higher taxes and gradually declining living standards. That makes its long-term sustainability uncertain.

How long Russia can continue fighting will also depend on forces beyond its borders. China and India are essential buyers of Russian oil, slowing the point at which fiscal pressures fully tighten. Meanwhile, tighter US and EU sanctions are constraining Russia’s access to advanced technology and complicating the logistics of foreign trade.

Geopolitics adds another layer of uncertainty. The latest US-drafted peace proposal for Ukraine echoes several longstanding Russian demands, while a major corruption scandal in Kyiv has weakened Ukraine’s political position at a sensitive moment.

These developments do not remove Russia’s economic vulnerabilities. But they do shape the environment in which Moscow navigates them, lowering the political cost of continuing the war even as economic pressures rise.

Russia’s war economy is not collapsing, but neither is it stable. It survives by pushing strain into the future – into labour markets, public finances and the everyday lives of Russian households.

The key question is how long the system can keep absorbing these pressures before they begin to reinforce one another. In that sense, Russia’s wartime economy still has time – but it is increasingly time borrowed from the future.

Yerzhan Tokbolat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Russia’s war economy is not collapsing, but neither is it stable – https://theconversation.com/russias-war-economy-is-not-collapsing-but-neither-is-it-stable-271700

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dylan Ryan, Lecturer in Mechanical & Energy Engineering, Edinburgh Napier University

The internet is awash with adverts for various portable heaters, with claims that they will heat your house for pennies. Some are marketed as the “Tesla of the heating industry” (despite being nothing to do with Elon Musk’s carmaker), while others claim they can “heat up a house in three minutes”.

It’s an appealing message, particularly during cold snaps when energy bills are high and many households are looking for quick fixes. But are any of these claims remotely true?

The short answer is no. And the reasons why are rooted in some very basic physics.

One key detail often missing from these adverts: almost all electric heaters are already close to 100% efficient. That doesn’t mean they are cheap to run – only that nearly all the electricity they use ends up as heat.

Electric heaters work by passing a current through a wire, which then heats up. That heat is then transferred to the room either by warming the air (distributed with a fan) or by radiating heat directly from a hot surface. Even things that sound like “losses”, such as friction in a fan motor, still end up as heat inside the room.

This means there is no clever design or secret component that can make one plug-in heater fundamentally more efficient than another. Electricity use is almost entirely converted into heat. So when a product claims to heat more while using less electricity, alarm bells should ring.

‘Heating a house in three minutes’ breaks the laws of physics

Some adverts go further, claiming a small portable device can heat an entire house in just a few minutes. This is where the numbers really matter.

Heating a typical home means warming hundreds of cubic metres of air, as well as countering heat losses to the outside. That takes lots of energy. To do it quickly would require tens of kilowatts of power – far more than can be drawn safely from a standard household plug socket.

In practice, most portable heaters are deliberately limited to around 2 kilowatts or less, to avoid overheating wiring and sockets. That’s enough to warm a small room, but nowhere near enough to rapidly heat a whole house. Claims otherwise simply don’t stack up.

What’s actually inside these devices?

Independent reviewers and engineers have tested many of these viral heaters, and are not impressed. In one teardown, electrical engineer and YouTuber Clive Mitchell found that a widely advertised “miracle” heater only produced just 500-800 watts of heat – less than half the output of a standard plug-in heater.

In another case, Mitchell looked at a device so badly built he described it as an “automatic house igniter” (though technically that really would heat up your home in three minutes…). He said it partly in jest, but it is a serious issue: badly made electrical products can pose genuine fire risks, particularly if left running unattended.

This is one reason why consumer groups consistently recommend buying heaters that meet established safety standards, rather than relying on anonymous online brands with big claims and little accountability.

Another internet trend involves using candles or tea lights to heat homes, often putting them inside various contraptions made from flower pots or tin cans. This is both dangerous and ineffective. Fire brigades have repeatedly warned against these setups, which pose obvious fire and carbon monoxide risks.

They are also expensive. A single tea light produces about 35 watts of heat. Even burning continuously, candles deliver heat at a far higher cost per kilowatt hour than electricity – and many times more than gas. Putting a tea light under a flower pot doesn’t change how much energy it releases.

What actually is the best way to heat your home?

Portable electric heaters do have a place. They are useful for short-term, localised heating, such as warming a home office or bedrooom for a few hours. Used carefully, they can be a practical supplement to central heating.

But they are not designed to heat entire homes continuously. Even if you rely on electricity for heating, wall mounted radiators are going to be much better for that. They are wired directly into the mains and can pull more power safely and reliably than you can get from a plugin device.

That said, even the best electric radiator is still expensive to run compared to a gas boiler. This brings us to a broader issue: households aren’t just missing a miracle heater. It’s that energy itself is too expensive.

Future solutions for home heating

Heat pumps are one electric technology that may genuinely change things. They work like a fridge in reverse, extracting heat from the outside air and pumping it into your home.

Because they move heat rather than generate it directly, a heat pump can move more heat than it takes electricity to operate. On average an air source heat pump will provide 2.7 kilowatts of heat for every kilowatt-hour of electricity expended. This works out to about a third of the carbon emissions of a gas boiler.

The downside is cost and complexity. Heat pumps are expensive to install and work best in homes that are already well-insulated. They’re not ideal for everyone, but they are one of the few technologies that genuinely offer long-term savings.

Wood burning stoves are another option, but there can be serious issues with air pollution. The price is highly variable and it is generally more expensive than regular heating.

Of course, the whole reason such adverts and social media trends pop up around now is because it’s cold and people are looking for solutions to heat their homes. But unfortunately, there aren’t any quick fixes.

The only real solutions are slower and unglamorous: better insulation, more efficient heating, and reforms to lower the cost of energy itself.

If a heater claims it can warm your whole home for pennies, it’s almost certainly too good to be true. Even the best heater cannot rewrite the rules of physics.

Dylan Ryan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Can ‘miracle’ heaters really warm your home for pennies? The physics says no – https://theconversation.com/can-miracle-heaters-really-warm-your-home-for-pennies-the-physics-says-no-271818

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Julie Posetti, Director of the Information Integrity Initiative, a project of TheNerve/Professor of Journalism, Chair of the Centre for Journalism and Democracy, City St George’s, University of London

The era of AI-assisted online violence is no longer looming. It has arrived. And it is reshaping the threat landscape for women who work in the public sphere around the world.

Our newly published report commissioned by UN Women offers early, urgent evidence indicating that generative AI is already being used to silence and harass women whose voices are vital to the preservation of democracy.

This includes journalists exposing corruption, activists mobilising voters and the human rights defenders working on the frontline of efforts to stall democratic backsliding.

Based on a global survey of women human rights defenders, activists, journalists and other public communicators from 119 countries, our research shows the extent to which generative AI is being weaponised to produce abusive content – in a multitude of forms – at scale.

We surveyed 641 women in five languages (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish). The surveys were disseminated via the trusted networks of UN Women, Unesco, the International Center for Journalists and a panel of 22 expert advisers representing intergovernmental organisations, the legal fraternity, civil society organisations, industry and academia.

According to our analysis, nearly one in four (24%) of the 70% of respondents who reported experiencing online violence in the course of their work identified abuse that was generated or amplified by AI tools. In the report, we define online violence as any act involving digital tools which results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political or economic harm, or other infringements of rights and freedoms.

But the incidence is not evenly distributed across professions. Women who identify as writers or other public communicators, such as social media influencers, reported the highest exposure to AI-assisted online violence at 30.3%. Women human rights defenders and activists followed closely at 28.2%. Women journalists and media workers reported a still alarming 19.4% exposure rate.

Since the public launch of free, widely accessible generative AI tools such as ChatGPT at the end of 2022, the barriers to entry and cost of producing sexually explicit deepfake videos, gendered disinformation, and other forms of gender-based online violence have been significantly reduced. Meanwhile, the speed of distribution has intensified.

The result is a digital landscape in which harmful, misogynistic content can be generated rapidly by anyone with a smart phone and access to a generative AI chatbot. Social media algorithms, meanwhile, are tuned to boost the reach of the hateful and abusive material, which then proliferates. And it can generate considerable personal, political and often financial gains for the perpetrators and facilitators, including technology companies.

Meanwhile, recent research highlights AI both as a driver of disinformation and as a potential solution, powering synthetic content detection systems and counter-measures. But there’s limited evidence of how effective these detection tools are.

Many jurisdictions also still lack clear legal frameworks that address deepfake abuse and other harms enabled by AI-generated media, such as financial scams and digital impersonation. This is especially the case when the attack is gendered, rather than purely political or financial. This is due to the inherently nuanced and often insidious nature of misogynistic hate speech, along with the evident indifference of lawmakers to women’s suffering.

Our findings underscore an urgent two-fold challenge. There’s a desperate need for stronger tools to identify, monitor, report and repel AI-assisted attacks. And legal and regulatory mechanisms must be established that require platforms and AI developers to prevent their technologies from being deployed to undermine women’s rights.

When online abuse leads to ‘real-world’ attacks

We can’t treat these AI-related findings as isolated statistics. They exist amid broadening online violence against women in public life. They are also situated within a wider and deeply unsettling pattern – the vanishing boundary between online violence and offline harm.

Four in ten (40.9%) women we surveyed reported experiencing offline attacks, abuse or harassment that they linked to online violence. This includes physical assault, stalking, swatting and verbal harassment. The data confirms what survivors have been telling us for years: digital violence is not “virtual” at all. In fact, it is often only the first act in a cycle of escalating harm.

For women journalists, the trend is especially stark. In a comparable 2020 survey, 20% of respondents reported experiencing offline attacks associated with online violence. But five years later, that figure has more than doubled to 42%. This dangerous trajectory should be a wake-up call for news organisations, governments and big tech companies alike.

When online violence becomes a pathway to physical intimidation, the chilling effect extends far beyond individual targets. It becomes a structural threat to freedom of expression and democracy.

In the context of rising authoritarianism, where online violence and networked misogyny are typical features of the playbook for rolling back democracy, the role of politicians in perpetrating online violence cannot be ignored. In the 2020 Unesco-published survey of women journalists, 37% of respondents identified politicians and public office holders as the most common offenders.

The situation has only deteriorated since 2020, with the evolution of a continuum of violence against women in the public sphere. Offline abuse, such as politicians and pubic office holders targeting female journalists during media conferences, can trigger an escalation of online violence that, in turn, can exacerbate offline harm.

This cycle has been documented all over the world, in the stories of notable women journalists like Maria Ressa in the Philippines, Rana Ayyub in India and the assassinated Maltese investigative jouralist Daphne Caruana Galizia. These women bravely spoke truth to power and were targeted by their respective governments – online and offline – as a result.

The evidence of abuse against women in public life we have uncovered during our research signals a need for more creative technological interventions employing the principles of “human rights by design”. These are safeguards recommended by a range of international organisations which build in protections for human rights at every stage of AI design. It also signals the need for stronger and more proactive legal and policy responses, greater platform accountability, political responsibility, and better safety and support systems for women in public life.

Julie Posetti is the Director of the Information Integrity Initiative, a project of TheNerve, the digital forensics lab run by the Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, which is a partner associated with the UN Women study.

This research was funded by the EU-UN Women ACT to End Violence against Women programme, and the report was co-authored by Dr. Pauline Renaud, Nermine Aboulez and Nabeelah Shabbir.

Kaylee Williams and Lea Hellmueller do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI tools are being used to subject women in public life to online violence – https://theconversation.com/ai-tools-are-being-used-to-subject-women-in-public-life-to-online-violence-271703

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy, Lancaster University

The festive movie season is upon us, and one of my perennial favourites is Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. I will die on this hill: it is better than the original. But rewatching it as an adult raises an awkward question. How on earth did the Wet Bandits survive the first film at all, let alone escape without lasting injuries?

Ten-year-old Kevin McCallister, the boy left home alone, sets up traps that are played for laughs, but many involve levels of force that would be catastrophic in real life. A 100lb (45kg) bag of cement to the head, bricks dropped from height, or heavy tools swung at the face are not things a human body can simply shrug off. High-impact trauma to the head and neck rarely ends well.

To understand why, it helps to know a little about skull anatomy. The skull has a protective “vault” that encases the brain, while the bones of the face contain hollow spaces called sinuses. These spaces reduce the weight of the skull but also act as a biological crumple zone, helping to absorb force and protect the brain during impacts. But that protection has limits.

A rough calculation of the forces involved when a 100lb bag of cement strikes the head suggests instant fatal injury. The neck simply cannot absorb that level of force. To put that in perspective, research shows that the cervical spine suffers severe damage above about 1,000 newtons of force. A 100lb (around 45kg) cement bag already exerts roughly 440 newtons under its own weight, and when falling, it decelerates over a very short distance on impact.

While the exact force depends on the height of the fall and how quickly the bag comes to a stop, even conservative assumptions place the impact well above 1,000 newtons, easily exceeding thresholds for catastrophic neck injury.

Beyond that, there is a high risk of brain herniation, where swollen brain tissue is forced into spaces it does not belong. This can compress areas that control breathing and movement, often leading to coma and death.

Head injuries are only part of the problem. Many of Kevin’s traps would also place enormous stress on the chest and major blood vessels. Falling forward from a height, being crushed by heavy objects, or being struck in the torso can cause severe internal injuries. These forces are commonly seen in high-speed, head-on car crashes. In extreme cases, the impact can rupture the aorta, the body’s main artery, which is almost always fatal.

Crush injuries elsewhere in the body can have serious and life-changing consequences. Even if they are not immediately deadly, they can cause internal bleeding that worsens over hours or days. Broken ribs, for example, can puncture the liver, kidneys or spleen, allowing blood to leak slowly into the abdomen. Damage to soft internal organs can also lead to infection, organ failure, or delayed death, depending on the severity.

Then there are the less obviously lethal moments. When Marv crashes into a shelf stacked with paint tins and the shelf falls on him, the impact alone could cause serious internal injury. And paint splashed into the eyes could cause chemical burns and blindness.

Simple slips and falls are not harmless either. The bones at the back of the skull are only about 6–7mm thick. A hard blow here can cause bleeding inside the skull. These brain bleeds do not always show symptoms immediately and may worsen over hours or days after what seemed like a minor bump.

Electricity is another recurring gag that would be anything but funny in reality. When Marv grabs the taps attached to an arc welder, he is exposed to electrical current that causes his muscles to contract uncontrollably. This is why people who touch live electrical sources often cannot let go. The current overrides the body’s normal nerve signals. Prolonged exposure increases the risk of disrupting the heart’s normal rhythm, potentially triggering cardiac arrest.

Despite what cartoons suggest, electricity does not make the skeleton visible – as we see happen to Marv. There is no X-ray radiation involved. To expose bone, you would need extremely high-voltage current, causing fourth-degree burns, which destroy skin, muscle and bone.

Piercing injuries also feature heavily. A nail through the foot is not just painful. It can damage nerves and soft tissues, fracture bones, and introduce bacteria deep into the wound. This raises the risk of serious infection, including tetanus.

Finally, there is Harry’s infamous blowtorch scene. Being set alight for 22 seconds is more than enough time to cause permanent nerve damage, potentially destroying pain sensation altogether. While scalp skin is among the thickest on the body, it has relatively little cushioning underneath. This makes the underlying tissue and bone more vulnerable to deep burns, reaching third or even fourth degree severity, which can be lethal.

Add combustible kerosene to the mix and the risks escalate further. Exposure is linked to kidney damage, heart problems, central nervous system depression and serious respiratory issues.

In short, Harry and Marv are walking medical impossibilities. Surviving a second round of Kevin McCallister’s festive booby traps would require extraordinary luck, immediate trauma care, and months of rehabilitation. Even if they appeared outwardly fine, the internal damage would probably be devastating. Perhaps those lingering injuries explain why the Wet Bandits never made it back for another sequel.

Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Home Alone’s ‘Wet Bandits’ are medical miracles – https://theconversation.com/home-alones-wet-bandits-are-medical-miracles-271538